With the furore over sidelining the UK Parliament regarding Article 50 in 2017 outraged citizens were asking questions on Quora: Could the UK become a dictatorship within the next few years? Is the UK losing its democracy? Is it turning into a dictatorship? Could the UK ever become a dictatorship? What steps would someone need to take? What ways would it be possible for Britain to become a dictatorship? Back then it was really hard to imagine a Prime Minister more ruthless and ambitious than the architect of the ‘Hostile Environment,’ but a far worse PM than the hapless Theresa May was to assume control of the toxic Tory Party when her thoroughly incompetent Foreign Minister Boris Johnson came to power. He lacked more than just any credibility for providing strong leadership, his track record as London Mayor was a shameful taste of things to come, when he was selected by the pitifully small Tory membership. What has changed politically between then and now and are we now inching closer to Dictatorship?
Among the replies posted back in 2017, UK Voter Simon Crump wrote that, “There is a well-established method of transforming a democracy into a dictatorship. The first step is obviously to get yourself elected as some kind of premier, be that president or prime minister. The nature of modern democracy is that there will be strict limits on the powers of such posts, so your next step is to extend those powers. You exploit some real or imagined national emergency to justify assuming more control on the basis that swift and decisive action is required.” The Tories never let a good crisis go to waste and the Covid 19 Pandemic is no exception!
Crump declared that, “…the goal is to circumvent parliament and eliminate it from the decision-making process.” That priority will be far easier to solidify once Johnson has achieved his crash-out Brexit and the EU Court cannot intervene. He asserts that, “The final step is to undermine the independence of the judiciary so that it cannot overrule the executive.” This ominous pledge was in written into Johnson’s Manifesto. The Tory power grab will use ‘Statutory Instruments’ the so called ‘Henry the Eighth’ powers to circumvent Parliament with changes to UK laws receiving little scrutiny and only debated after they are already in place. Crump says that, “Having done all this, the dictator simply accumulates more and more executive power until they can make important decisions on their own without the approval of any other branch of government.” This could and probably will include stripping the devolved Governments of powers that they have right now; Johnson’s stolen majority would allow him to get away with all of this.
We need to learn the lessons of history because a repetition of the past is almost too terrifying to be contemplated, but it all started with an election. Crump reminds us that, “This is more or less how Hitler rose to power in the 1930s. He was elected as chancellor (i.e. prime minister), then persuaded his president to sign the Enabling Act of 1933, which allowed him to make executive orders without consulting the Reichstag (i.e. parliament). The Act limited his extended powers to a period of four years, within which time of course Hitler passed more laws to extend the period indefinitely. You can also make comparisons with the way Vladimir Putin has established himself as the only politician in Russia of any real significance, and the first days of Donald Trump’s presidency have already demonstrated his enthusiasm to use his surprise win and control of both chambers of Congress to sign executive orders and arrest dissenting journalists.” Putin just managed to gain support for a lengthy extension of his ability to remain in office!
Crump continued, “May exploited the chaos of the EU referendum to become Prime Minister in an ultimately uncontested leadership battle within the Conservative Party. Despite its complete lack of legal substance, she then presumed that the referendum gave her unlimited power to adopt a hard-Brexit position that she had previously rejected and invoke Article 50 without consulting parliament. When the Supreme Court advised her that this was illegal, proto-fascist newspapers like the Daily Mail ran headlines referring to the judges as traitors and ‘enemies of the people’. Having attempted to grab executive powers she did not have and then successfully turn 52% of the public against the principle of an independent judiciary…” When Crump writes, “The stage is set for you to establish a cult of personality, suppress opposition through the use of lies, legal threats and physical intimidation, and rule until you become so infirm you have to pass power over to a close family member,” one has to wonder if he knew what was coming down the pike!
In August 2018 UK Voter, Andrew Williams offered an interesting and controversial perspective when he wrote that, “The UK is not a democracy as some wrongly assert. A democracy is direct consensus of the people. I can’t think of any examples of a current democracy. We have our dictator: HM the Queen. Yes, she appoints her underlings the Lords, and the Commons to carry out day-to-day affairs, but she is still our supreme ruler. The Monarchy in the past has declined to give royal assent to Acts, and even our current Monarch has effectively ‘blocked’ or ‘vetoed’ legislation. Secret papers show extent of senior royals’ veto over bills. What is the difference between a monarch and a dictator? One has had power passed to him over such a long family lineage that we don’t question it any more, one has not had his origins masked over time yet. They both have the support of the military. Both rule at the point of a gun. Neither is elected.” This is a valid point and why the Labour left want the Monarchy to have a purely ceremonial role.
Williams boldly asserts that, “We should become a Constitutional Republic. We would then have guarantees that cannot be easily revoked by Acts (like happens now, with one previous privilege being taken away on a relative whim). Needing consent of a majority of our States (either counties, or constituent countries) – which is difficult to get the consent of the people to revoke a guaranteed right – is a stable form of Governance.” While I agree on the need for a written Constitution I do not support Williams claim that, “The USA is an excellent model. The people have inalienable rights, and the right to defend themselves against their Government, so know exactly where they stand. Even the most egregious bills could be passed, and the people would still maintain a minimum set of rights, and have the physical force available to take out their Government.” The infamous Second Amendment to the US Constitution established the citizen’s right to bear arms; there is a massive proliferation of guns! I lived in the US for twenty years; there are many flaws in the system, hence Trump is in office.
Sean Keeley, answered as a “former Parliamentary Intern at House of Commons (2015-2016)” He wrote, “Well any country could become a dictatorship. It is an interesting question because the Royal Prerogative has questioned only just recently at the Supreme Court. Because the UK has no constitution, what we would consider to be one, (an amount of documents and laws that have passed) can be changed easily by an act of parliament, if the Prime Minister wanted to become a crazed dictator it would be hard, but I guess the first step he/she would take is to make sure they have a really big parliamentary majority in the House of Commons and maybe start filling the House of Lords with his/her party, that means now the Prime Minister can get some legislation through easily. Or even abolish the House of Lords, but he/she would have to get the support of their MPs…” All parties try to stuff the House of Lords with their undeserving cronies; as an unelected second chamber it remains an affront to democracy.
Keeley then wrote, “One of the core principles of the UK political system is parliamentary sovereignty, parliament can overrule anything with legislation, literally almost everything. However because MPs have a conscience – and this is the important part – the Prime Minister can’t just get anything through the House of Commons, even though the Government usually have a very very strong Whips Office, Whips are also MPs so they will have their own views.” Stunned derision, not all MP have a conscience! He continued, “But still it would be very hard to convince the House of Commons to do anything that might inhibit their chance of personal re-election. Then of course he/she will have to contend with the House of Lords, they more so vote on conscience as they have a weak whips office.” The PM has established a zero tolerance policy for dissent in his Tory Government; no independent thinking, briefing or voting decisions are allowed; I doubt the unelected ‘Vermin in Ermine’ are uniformly guided by conscience.
UK Voter Rinaldo Fezzato wrote that, “People should not think it couldn’t happen because I think it’s nearly happened before. A dictatorship of any kind is always based on military force. The Nazis got into parliamentary power because of an army of thousands of Brownshirts financed by big business. He then got the army onside and set up the SS and got rid of The Reichstag altogether. During the General Strike in 1926, the Tory Government mobilised the army, turned Hyde Park into a massive military camp ready to take over London and machine guns set up on the high buildings in Glasgow and elsewhere.” I am uncertain of the extent of military intervention at this juncture, but the Worker’s Liberty site offers a detailed documentation of the events. Fezzato also writes that, “The Government bureaucracy hate a Labour Government. MI5 and the CIA bugged their own Prime Minister, Harold Wilson. Meanwhile the Treasury cooked the books to make it look as if the UK was in economic crisis had to seek a loan from the IMF.”
Fezzato continued, “I believe that the military and state bureaucracy were prepared for a coup in the ‘name of Queen’ if someone like Benn were to become Prime Minister. They would certainly have had American support. They were OK with Blair because he had turned Labour into a soft Tory party anyway Blair himself became George W’s poodle. I think when Corbyn become PM he will find MI5 and Government bureaucracy – including the Treasury working against him and secret plans made ready for a military takeover. The idea that such a thing ‘could never happen in good old Britain’ is nonsense. It could happen in any country just as the Americans intervened to overthrow a legitimately elected Communist Government in Chile and set up a military dictatorship. The main purpose of all armies is not to protect countries against foreign enemies but to protect the ruling class from its own people.” This was written back in August 2017, a genuinely hopeful time of wistfully imagining of “when Corbyn becomes PM!”
Jeffrey Richardson, answering as, “a Prison Monitor, Museum Guide, History Reader, Economist,” wrote, “It would be easier for a PM to do this if they had gained fame before entering politics, say as a reality TV star.” I would add, perhaps a ridiculous clown caught on a zip-wire or a golden haired naughty boy darling of the elderly. “After this the next steps would go something like this…” He provided a disquietingly accurate list of what Boris Johnson has accomplished in just a few short months:
1. “Create an empty slogan that appeals to people’s sense of better past but without being specific about policies; something like ‘Make Britain Great Again’.” ( Boris Johnson used ‘Get Brexit Done’)
2. “Demonise the independent media and promote yourself and your party as the only source of real news.” ( Bully the BBC into functioning as your mouthpiece and only grant interviews or press access to compliantly supportive media! All done.)
3. “Tell big lies openly and brazenly.” ( Boris Johnson really excels at this one; he tells an unbelievably massive lie or makes an impressive pledge, then keeps doubling-down on the lie or false promise until people think it’s true! He never admits that he was mistaken, let alone wrong; he never apologise for disinformation, broken pledges or gross insults.)
4. “Make yourself the focus of everything so that anything that you consider good that happens is your achievement.” (- In contrast blame anything that goes wrong on the victims, the opposition or the most convenient scapegoat at the time! Boris Johnson’s ego is boundless; he craves public adulation, but is oblivious to ridicule. The narcissistic PM named the ‘Boris Bike’ after himself, but the ‘Boris Spike’ in Covid 19 cases he might not be so keen on!)
5. “Surround yourself with sycophants and family members who owe their positions solely to you.” ( Boris Johnson’s ego is so fragile needs his MPs the media and the general public to constantly fawn over him. However, he will ruthlessly throw them under the bus if they embarrass him, criticise him, refuse to support his votes or just outgrow their usefulness and he needs a scapegoat to take a hit over his latest disaster screw-up! )
6. “Politicise the criminal justice and legal systems. Make sure all the key roles are filled by your supporters.” (Johnson has pledged to essentially neuter the Judiciary, eliminate Judicial Review and make Judges political appointees. He also intends to remove the UK from the European Court of Human Rights despite it being a separate entity from the EU.)
7. “Partner with Russia to get the help of its army of hackers in subverting elections and communicating your message.” ( Do not forget those Russian Oligarchs and the huge sums of money they donate to support the Tory Party. This huge slush-fund keeps Boris Johnson clinging to power for the small price of a few games of tennis, subverting Human Rights and helping Putin to destroy European unity! )
8. “Reward the very richest in society so that you are backed by their resources.” ( There will be plenty of Tory controlled largesse and lucrative contracts to satiate the financial demands of major Corporations. The Covid crisis has just made the awarding of these deals without competitive bidding, adequate scrutiny or Parliamentary oversight a lot easier. The Government bail-outs to wealthy cohorts come with ‘no strings attached,’ staff can be fired and rehired for less, profits can still be siphoned offshore and payment of UK taxes will not be mentioned. Tax revenues can be squeezed out of the working poor at a later date as their benefits and basic services are cut yet again.)
9. “Foster a cultural war so that your supporters consider your opponents to be immoral and not true citizens.” ( Another area where Johnson and his Tory cabal excel; demonizing a peaceful lifelong anti–racist campaigner as an anti-Semitic, terrorist, Soviet spy and an existential threat to the security of the nation. This while the Tories refuse to apologise for blatant racist remarks that incite violence and sell weapons to dangerous foreign despots to victimize or kill their civilian population and drop bombs on school children beyond their borders!)
10. “Create and exploit distrust towards immigrants and minorities.” ( Boris Johnson has perfected the art of ‘othering,’ not content to limit his targeting to just immigrants and minorities; he will demonize the poor, those who are out of work, the disabled, unmarried mothers, illegitimate children and anyone he feels like flinging insults at on a whip. In creating a society where everyone has someone to hate, his Tory Manifest also pledged to criminalize the Roma population.)
Richardson writes, “Worryingly this could work;” sadly almost of this has already been accomplished or is right on schedule to be enacted within the coming year. The above list resembles the classic makers of a country heading towards dictatorship, but too many of us in the UK are failing to recognize these dire warning indicators as we continue sleepwalking into the dystopian Tory nightmare being crafted by an unelected Chief Advisor, Cummings, who we have every right to extricate from a position of extraordinary power.
Robert Cameron wrote, “Hypothetically: If he/she commanded a clear majority in the House of Commons, they could pass a bill abolishing elections and giving the government power to act and legislate unhindered.” The Tories accomplished this with the Covert 2019 Rigged Election. He goes on to say, “If the Lords held it up, more compliant peers would be appointed.” Stacking more failed MPs, miscreants and toxic Tory elitists into the packed House of Lords to join the ‘vermin in Ermine’ is an ongoing project, but his next premise is well off the mark, “If the Queen refused to sign, there might be an election on this platform. If won, the Queen would probably abdicate.” He admits that, “The point here is that this is all extremely unlikely, as is a military coup (100,000 troops to suppress substantial proportion of 65 million people is a tall order, even if all obliged).”
Robert Cameron continues, “Governments are repeatedly trying to accumulate unaccountable powers by delegation or appeal to prerogative powers (the fuss over article 50 is just a spectacularly brazen example). They are challenged, often by members of the ruling party. Ultimately, we would only become a dictatorship if a majority voted for it.” In our present situation I would say that it wasn’t that the majority voted for it, but that the majority were conned into believing that they had voted for authoritarian Tory rule in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election and therefore too many British people have failed to realize that the UK is now on the path to dictatorship. He admits that, “Once allowed, it might need revolt to get rid of.” In reality the ousting of a dictator takes decades of resistance, but he naively adds, “Usually, even governing parties manage to get rid of leaders who get delusions of grandeur. Our politicians still have at least remnants of respect for principle over partisanship. When they lose that, you get Erdogan.” Johnson has already established his, ‘my way or the highway’, control of MPs; no question we have now got Erdogan!
Like the ominous ghost of Christmas past these Quora opinion comments on the risk of the UK descending into dictatorship loom large over our current rapidly deteriorating democracy. The roadmap to dictatorship has always been a well recognized catalogue of steps that should be sounding a deafeningly loud claxon horn warning right now before it is too late to derail the freight train to a dire fascist future. We must alert the wider public to this existential threat to our dwindling democracy and it starts by aggressively combating the Tory propaganda of ‘borrowed votes’ stolen in a fake Tory ‘landslide victor’ at the Covert 2019 Rigged Election. We must get the public to recognize the sickening reality of this deception and demand Cummings submit to Parliamentary questioning under oath or face jail. Cummings immediate removal from post, release of the Russia Report and a Comprehensive Investigation into the Covert 2019 Rigged Election will delegitimize the propaganda and get this corrupt Tory Government ejected from office. DO NOT MOVE ON!